Clean start: The 2013 Padres

But the Padres are mindful of what a strong finish in 2009 meant to the 2010 team. And a strong start in 2010 served as a springboard to the 90-win season that saw the Padres in the playoff hunt to the last day of the season.

Could lightning strike twice?

The Padres believed it could, if the starting pitching rebounded from the injury-riddled campaign of 2012.

“I think our offense from one through eight is the best it’s been since I’ve been here,” Silver Slugger-winning third baseman Chase Headley said during the first week of spring training.

Seven weeks later, however, the light at the end of the tunnel is not so bright.

Headley will miss the first two weeks to the first month of the regular season with a fractured bone at the tip of his left thumb. And days before Monday’s season opener against the Mets in New York, the Padres were still hopeful about the availability of left fielder Carlos Quentin (right knee), and infielder Logan Forsythe (plantar fasciitis) was lost for the first six weeks of the season.

Plus, the schedule makers didn’t do the Padres any favors.

After opening the season with six games on the road against the Mets and Rockies, the Padres play nine of the of next 12 games against division powers San Francisco (winners of two of the last three World Series) and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have loaded up since August via trades and free agency.

Hopes of a fast start have given way to surviving the opening weeks of the season.

When looking back on spring training of 2013, Padres manager Bud Black used the term “buzzard luck.”

“We need to stay healthy,” Black said. “It hasn’t happened so far. Every team has injuries. We’ve had a lot. We haven’t gotten a lot of breaks on the medical front.”

All told, the Padres suffered significant injuries to eight players this spring.

Right-hander Casey Kelly, who entered spring training as a favorite to land a berth in the starting rotation, will have elbow reconstruction surgery early this week while the Padres are in New York. Kelly is the fourth Padres starting pitcher — joining Cory Luebke, Joe Wieland and Juan Pablo Oramas — to have “Tommy John” surgery in the past 10 months. He’s also one of the Padres top two prospects to have “Tommy John” surgery this spring.

Right fielder Rymer Liriano had the procedure two weeks into camp.

In addition to Kelly, Headley, Quentin and Forsythe, center fielder Cameron Maybin (wrist and back), right fielder Will Venable (left rib cage), outfielder-third baseman James Darnell (right oblique strain) and relief pitcher Nick Vincent (inflamed tendon in the forearm and wrist of his pitching hand) have missed time this spring.